The Blower of Bubbles Part 18

"Marching orders," said the other. "We leave here to-morrow. By jove, we've got something to fight for now!"

Montague murmured his best wishes and moved on, but the words that kept running through his brain were those of the boy's manager who had written "A decent enough fellow, but lacking in initiative."

VI

His walk, unplanned as it was, drew him towards the center of the city.

He mechanically avoided the streets that were crowded, and, like a bit of flotsam on the ocean's surface, was guided and buffeted until, turning down a quiet side-street, he emerged upon the corner of a huge stone building. He glanced up, to realize that it was the Armories and was about to change his course when a recruiting sergeant, noticing his hesitation, stepped up to him.

"Beg pardon," he said, "but was you lookin' to sign up?"

"Sign up?" Montague repeated the words automatically.

"Sure--sign up with the Brindle's Battalion."

"The Brindle's Battalion?"

"Come off that parrot stuff," growled Sergeant Saunders.

Montague shook himself together. "I beg your pardon," he said stiffly.

The sergeant shuffled uneasily. "Say, don't be so dashed polite," he said, not ill-naturedly. "I'm here to get recruits. We're a tough bunch; we're a rough bunch; but we're men. Our boys ain't strong on polish or eddication, and they're no boozeless, non-smoking crowd; but they're straight, and they're game, and they're men."

"They're men," repeated Montague, dazed by a dizziness that seemed to wrap himself and the sergeant in an enveloping mist.

"That's what I said," reiterated Sergeant Saunders, mentally noting that he would make Montague drop his sing-song if he ever got the opportunity. "What do you say, old scout?"

Montague glanced up. "Will you take me?" he said.

"Will we take you?" A broad, brown hand grasped Montague's arm, and he found himself being led into a room in the Armories, where he discovered that his full name was Dennis Oliver Montague, that he was twenty-eight years of age, that he was an Anglican, and that his Uncle Charles was his next of kin. He further found that he was the property of His Majesty King George the Fifth for the duration of the war and six months after. "So 'elp me; and shove 'im in to the medico.--Glad you signed up, my lad; you'll never regret it. We've got a man's job for you, and--close that bleeding door, Nokes.--All right.--_Next!_"

With whirlwind rapidity Dennis stripped for the doctor, who p.r.o.nounced him an excellent example of cannon-fodder; and, still dazed, he put on his clothes and emerged into the open air, a red band about his arm proclaiming to the world that he was now Private D. O. Montague, of the Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F. He gasped, shrugged his shoulders, then went home.

VII

Sergeant Skimps surveyed the squad of recruits with the eye of a man who had seen recruits for twenty years and was impervious to any emotion on the subject.

"You're soldiers now," he began, his dialect strongly reminiscent of Bow Bells; "you're in the service now, so, kiss me, 'Arry, get your 'air cut, all of yer. We don't go in for Paderooskies in the harmy.

Then 'old yer 'eads hup and put yer chests hout has though you was somebody. You ain't, but don't go tellin' no one." (A gentle murmur greeted this sally.) "Halways respeck yer hofficers and non-commissioned hofficers, and don't go slapping the colonel on the back and hoffering 'im a cigar. You're in the harmy--that bloke at the hend, spit out that there tobacco--g'wan!--a filthy 'abit on parade, and it'll get C.B. for yer. Where do you 'ail from, hany'ow?--a nice specimen, I don't think--chewing when a sawgeant's talking to yer. Now, then, fall in--hanother 'arf-hour's drill."

For five hours that day alternately Sergeant Skimps talked, and his tired squad turned, marched, and wheeled about the gravel parade-ground. Weary to the point of exhaustion, already deaf to the interminable harangue of Sergeant Skimps, the hour of four-thirty found Montague with his first day in the army finished. He had only one desire--to seek his apartment, to feel the cool shower upon his body, and to lounge in languid repose in his dressing-gown, soothed by the inevitable cigarette. He broke away from the group, but was hailed by a ruddy-faced Little Englander, who had made various overtures to him during the day.

"Going up?" said the other, his accent proclaiming his British birth, tempered by ten years of Canadian citizenship.

"Yes," said Montague; "but I'm in a hurry."

"Right-o! I'm with you." He swung along beside Montague. "This is the life," he said cheerily.

"What?" asked Montague.

"Soldiering--a dollar ten a day, short hours, and no work--what ho!"

"Do you mean to say you like it?" asked Montague, wishing his companion reeked a little less of his recent exertions.

"Why not like it?" said Private Waller. "We're in it, ain't we?"

"I suppose so," said the other shortly.

Private Waller rubbed his hands together. "He's a sergeant, ain't he?"

"Do you mean that strutting bounder who drilled us to-day?"

"Lordee! don't let him hear you say that." The little man went pale at the thought. "Say, if you don't like him, just wait until you see Sergeant-Major 'Awkins."

A c.o.c.kney of even ten years' Canadian citizenship loses his h's when excited. Montague began to wince under it, and wished a dozen times that his companion would hold his tongue and give him a chance to think, to separate the varied experiences of the day, and to edit his thoughts. He shrugged his shoulders and acknowledged the greeting of Mrs. Merryweather from a huge motor-car. Waller's eyes bulged.

"I say, you know some swells, don't you? What was you--a chauffeur?"

Montague considered. "No; I was a sort of social buffoon."

Waller considered. "Something in the plumbing line?" he ventured.

"Not exactly," answered Montague, and muttered, "Duration of the war--and six months after--with plebs like this!"

"I'm a carpenter by trade," vouchsafed Private Waller, and then emitted a shout of delight. "I say," he cried; "blime, if it ain't the missus!"

In a few moments they reached a little Englishwoman, not much more than a girl, who was guiding a baby-carriage containing a chubby little youngster of some two years of age.

"'Ello, Bill!" she said. "'Ow's the army?"

"Great," said her husband; "but meet my pal, Private Montague.--Private Montague, meet my old woman."

"Glad to know any friend of Bill's," said Mrs. Waller warmly.

Montague bowed. "Thank you," he said gravely. "You are giving up a lot in letting your husband go to the war."

"You said I had to, Emily."

The girl pouted. "'E would go."

"But you wanted to go, Bill."

"Of course; but I said----"

"I know--about the biby; but----"

"There you go again. Didn't you say I must?"